Dragon Hermit

The black minivan stopped two meters away from the entrance of a KTV bar with a gaudy outer appearance, and around a dozen men and women descended from it. These women were all scantily-clad, pretty and young, dressed in clubwear. They bantered with the group of men with smiles on their faces as they entered the KTV bar.

“Hmm?” Xia Yan furrowed his brows as he had noticed a girl donned in a student uniform among this group. She didn’t have a smile on her face and was wedged between three men as they entered inside. From the looks of it, it seemed like she was quite unwilling to enter inside.

However, this wasn’t an issue for Xia Yan to deal with since he had no intention to meddle in other people’s business. He continued walking forward and suddenly felt the magic power inside his mind’s magic tower slightly fluctuate. He had discovered the location of the elemental mark he had left behind, and after looking for it, he discovered a response from within the KTV bar that those people from before had entered — Dynasty Karaoke Hub.

Xia Yan glanced at the huge signboard, but didn’t venture inside, and instead circled around to the bar’s backdoor.

Darkness existed wherever light existed, so no matter how bright and neat the shop front looked, it would inevitably have a back alley where the sewage overflowed. Xia Yan swiftly found the fire exit of Dynasty Karaoke Hub in one of the alleys.

Chengdu was covered in surveillance cameras, and this alley also had webcams installed in it, so Xia Yan wasn’t willing to appear inside the range of the camera. He found a love hotel nearby and booked a room on its second floor and placed the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on his door before closing it. He then pulled the curtains of the window open and looked below at the alley that led to Dynasty Karaoke Hub.

Xia Yan sent a strand of magic power inside the Skeleton Horcrux, and a blue wisp of soul fire flew out from inside. He pointed towards a location with his finger, and this wisp of soul fire descended down to transform into a skeleton soldier at a dark corner of the alley below. After that, Xia Yan bundled up the magician’s robe and threw it down before resting on the bed with his eyes closed. The scenery before his eyes changed in the next instant as he had already transferred his consciousness to the skeleton soldier.

He bowed his head to look at his bare-boned arms and let out a silent laughter with his dancing lower jaw.

Xia Yan picked up the magician’s robe and wore it on. The fearsome skeleton soldier had now become a black-robed man with a strange aura around him. He tightened his belt and pulled down the hood before walking towards the back door of Dynasty Karaoke Hub.

As it didn’t have any muscles, the skeleton soldier’s gait was unlike that of a living human. The power driving the bones came from the bones themselves after they had undergone the soul fire’s transformation and was one of the mystic forces. The soul fire within the skull sustained the caster’s consciousness and also provided a continuous supply of energy to the skeleton soldier.

The bones of the skeleton soldier rattled softly as Xia Yan finally reached before the back door of Dynasty Karaoke Hub.

The back door wasn’t locked, he was able to gently push it open. The room behind the door depicted a busy scene where some filled the bottles with water while others carried fruit platters, and air inside was suffused with the scent of popcorn and butter. Xia Yan showed no hesitation as he sauntered inside. He thought someone would block him from entering, but strangely enough, these people just gave him a look and went back to doing their business.

The people of this era had seen too many bizarre things, so they weren’t unfamiliar with such things. It was highly likely that the staff members of this karaoke hub had also become accustomed to seeing weird sights, so none of them felt like getting involved unless Xia Yan planned to steal something.

After going through another door, Xia Yan finally arrived inside the karaoke hub. This place was brightly lit, so Xia Yan lowered his head to hide his entire head under the hood and followed the traces of the elemental mark. He reached a spacious staircase and climbed onto the second floor by following it.

The upper end of the staircase had two waiters dressed in vests and bow ties on wait. When they saw Xia Yan, one of them approached him and asked, “Excuse me, Sir. May I ask which room you have booked?”

Xia Yan had no clue which room Wang Gang was located in, so he just pointed towards the location of the elemental mark and almost extended his bone fingers outside the spacious sleeves.

“So, you are a friend of Brother Gang?” The waiter revealed an obsequious smile immediately and said fawningly, “Allow me to guide you there at once!”

Xia Yan nodded and followed behind the waiter who led the way and brought him before the entrance of a huge room. After that, the waiter pushed open the door politely, and caused loud sounds and the chilling air to surge out from within.

Under such circumstances, it was only possible to hear someone speak if they yelled out loud unless they possessed the microphone in their hands, so the waiter retreated tactfully and closed the door of the room again. Xia Yan raised his head slightly and the sockets of the skeleton soldier flickered with a faint blue light under the dim lighting of the room.

A host of demons danced wildly inside this room, and all the thugs he had encountered at noon were present here. A majority of them had injuries on their faces while two unlucky fellows had bandages around their arm and leg.

All the thugs held a ‘princess’ each within their arms, and some of these women had already stripped their clothes while the others were almost nude as well. The scene of the thugs running their hands up and down their bodies was a really terrible sight to see. There were also some straws and fine, white power present on the wide table, and it was needless to say what they were.

Xia Yan’s sudden appearance had attracted the gazes of all the men inside the room except for a few who were wasted already. The men looked at the black-robed man standing before the door in a daze for a few moments.

A thug with tattoos on his bare arm staggered over unsteadily and pushed the skeleton soldier as he began swearing with his foul mouth, “Who the hell are you? And that getup, are you shooting a movie or what? I…”

He stopped speaking suddenly as he had realized that his hand touched a stick instead of a human’s body.

“Boss! He has a weapon!” The thug screamed after turning around. He believed that the stick under the robe was the handle of a knife.

The horrid singing voice came to an end spontaneously and everyone looked over towards the entrance curiously.

The bald Brother Gang squeezed the breast of the woman beside him firmly and threw away the cigarette butt in his mouth before standing up. He then tilted his head and said, “You punk. So what if he has a weapon? There’s so many of us here, so why are you getting scared by just a single guy? Do we not have weapons as well?”

“And you, who are you? Why have you come looking for me?” Brother Gang shouted while pointing at Xia Yan.

The skeleton soldier didn’t have the ability to speak as it didn’t have any vocal cords. Xia Yan also had no intention of saying any superfluous words to him, so he just stepped forward. However, the bare-chested thug before him reached out to block his path, “Bastard, Brother Gang just asked you something. Can’t you—”

His words cut off suddenly as Xia Yan had punched his stomach. The skeleton soldier didn’t have any flesh or skin, so a punch from it was the same as a stab from a heavy baton. Thus, the bare-chested thug immediately fell down to the floor, and his body curled up like a baby shrimp.

The fight had begun!

The thugs clamored up immediately and picked up a bottle of beer each from the table, while some even smashed the bottles on the table to create a lethal weapon with sharp, jagged edges. It seemed like Xia Yan lit the fuse now.

The women also screamed in terror but after a shout from Wang Gang, all of them closed their mouths and huddled up at a corner of the room.

The thug at the front smashed the beer bottle towards the skeleton soldier’s head, but Xia Yan didn’t even bother to dodge and received it with its skull directly. Followed by a bang, the bottle shattered into pieces as if it had crashed into a rock, and the glass fragments spattered all across, causing the thug to scream while covering his face.

It would be a wonder if someone didn’t injure themselves by smashing a beer bottle on a rock-hard object.

The head of the skeleton soldier was pretty hard!